The Hayseeds blog, No. 167 for the week starting July 23, 2006.
July 9, 2006
Hayseeds No. 166
July 23, 2006
Hayseeds No. 167
July 30, 2006
Hayseeds No. 167
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For those of you who don't like Spitzer or are believers in great conspiracy theories that suggest that there is a permanent ruling class in Albany beyond Joe, Shelly, and 'Taki will be happy to know that the person behind the SpitzerBlog and the Spitzer Action Network, happens to have a day job working for Mercury Public Affairs, a largely Republican connected lobbying firm.
The Spitzer Action Network down here in Albany has done a lot of activities that get out information on Spitzer including the recent lit drop we participated in at the Capitol on the 4th of the July. Their recent $125 fundraiser mentioned there was pretty much of reach for us mere mortals, but certainly if they do a lower priced one, I'll be there.
If you want some awsome lasagna and want to hear from the man who almost gave away prime Pine Bush to the city garbage dump but then chickened out on pressure from consituents.
McEneny never struck me as much of a legislator standing for anything except being a drunk Irish legislator part of the Albany establishment, but when you meet him he's pretty impressive guy with a lot of passion for the politics he stands.
On the other hand, he's certainly done his part to try to score points with environmentalists. He made the Pine Bush forever wild, killed the ATV trail fund, is a co-sponsor of burn barrel bill, and has been a good supporter of the Open Space Preservation Act. Some of the things were good, and some others not so good. It might be fun to ask him why he killed the trail fund.
So come on by and hear about:
The Pine Bush and the Landfill —
Where do We Go From Here?Mr. McEneny, in the last week of the Assembly Session, pulled a bill that would have alienated 12.5 acres of the Pine Bush Preserve to be used as a landfill by the City of Albany. But, this issue is far from dead. The City still needs someplace to put its garbage and generate revenue. Mr. McEneny will talk about where we are now and what needs to happen next.
The dinner is Wednesday at 6:00 PM at the First Presbyterian Church, at State and Willett, Albany, parking lot is on State St. More information on the diner.
I like Spitzer. He's going to be a good next governor, and it's essential that we elect him to be our next governor. Things have gone too much in the wrong way under Pataki and many of Spitzer's ideas are the kind of progressive change our state needs.
Some people say because that he should get a free ride into his governorship. He's better then John Faso's vaugue and often delusional ideas on how to govern the state with a right wing agenda. He's better but not perfect, and it's important that we get our voices heard.
We at the end of the day should do whatever we can to ensure that Spitzer's voice is heard and that we get a solid governor elected into office. A Spitzer's governorship will consist of sensible decisions not just appealing to a far right or left minority, and while we might not totally agree with the man he's the best that we have.
At any rate, for a while during the concert at Ten Ecyk Plaza today I'm going to be out there handing out literature for Spitzer. It's important people constantly hear about Spitzer and know that he's the best choice for New York governor after 12 years of George Pataki.
While it's pretty amazing that's he stuck around so long, the lost of Kimberly Devin might just be a death blow to his failing candidacy against Spitzer.
Suozzi's a good guy, but he should have given up a long time ago. Maybe we need Suozzi around in four years to ask Spitzer if he's done the right thing as governor, but not right now. It's time for us New Yorkers to see what Governor Spitzer can do for our state, and then we can make a decision after some time goes on.
Tired of seeing Spitzer comericals on television? You better just not watch TV as everybody will know about Spitzer with all the money he has in his campaign accounts.
Buildings 1 and 1A in the Harriman Campus are going to be demolished as part of the State's delusional Tech Park dreams, claiming that these buildings our outmoded for their current use.
Lynne Jackson probably is right in questioning why we have to demolish fairly good quality buildings and what ultimately will happen to all that demolition debris. It's a really troublesome thing when the state has no new clients to buy space in these areas, and it might be vacant for years.
Not surpisingly the liberal Elliot Spitzer has gotten a lot of money from big-time actors and other elites that are well known liberals that want to support a new kind of governor for New York, and possibly a President in 2012 or 2016.
Besides the socialites, horse tracks have been big givers as Spitzer may ultimately decide the fate of NYRA, a lot from unions including firefighters and policy, and other organizations.
And it should be noted that 46% of Spitzer's contributors come from Upstate while only 40% come from the NYC-area and about 13% out of state. That's contributors not dollars contributed and it's likely to suspect that a lot more money comes from the wealthier city.
Diesels are dirty, particularly older ones such as those found on many school buses. Most of us who have either ridden school buses or seen them go down the road, have seen the massive clouds of black smoke behind the buses, particularly the older ones.
Kids are breathing in the crap when they get on and off the bus, and through exhaust leaks. Nobody should be exposed repeatly to that kind of pollution, particularly the stuff you get in a school yard when 35 of these buses start up and black smoke clouds start to float over the lot.
So the EPA and the NYRDA has taken up plans to clean up school buses by retrofitting them with certain kinds of pollution reduction equipment that some suburbian buses already have.
One school district, Southern Saratoga Shenadoha plan to get one Hybrid Bus that will cut emissions by 95% over a current diesel bus (which is about 90% cleaner then a bus a decade ago), use almost half as much fuel.
Think that race based pricing is illegal under state law? It is except that it appears that many minorities and those living in poor communties pay far more for things like car insurance or even basics like furniture and televisions through rent-to-own.
Some of it's cultural like the insistance of owning one of those television sets or nice looking furniture. People can save even if they make very little by being very cautious every week.
Yet, other factors are even more troublesome. In some neighboorhoods, car thefts are more then a problem like my neighboorhood where nearly everybody leaves the keys in the ignitition. How much should we be penalizing those who can't live in such great neighboorhoods? How can we reduce auto thefts and ensure cars are affordable for even those of different races.
So what happens with both George Pataki and Mary Donhue are out of state under the state consitution? It seems that when the governor leaves the state, the state is handed over to the Luetient Governor. If the Luetient Governor is incapcitated, resigns, or dies, the position falls to the Senate Majority Leader.
A federal court has basically stated that the power to regulate benifits locally on big companies is superseeded by the need of the interstate commerence per the consitution.
That means that hundreds of hard working Maylanders who happen to work for massive corporations won't be getting any healthcare anytime soon except through state subsidized programs such as medicaid.
This clearly is an abuse of federal power and undermines the ideals of federalism. States should have the right to experiment with policies that best benifit their people, as long as they don't directly and intentually inpeed commerence. We are heading towards the slippery slope of the federal government regulating are entire lives.
It seems that thanks to the hard work of our friends over at the RFK Club and Working-Families there are a lot of seats in play for the first time ever.
"These are elected positions, although most people don't know it," he said. "For ages, the committee seats have been treated as appointed positions by those in power."
While Frank Commisso probably would disagree with me, having primaries at least for committee seats ultimately will lead to a stronger party. We need more new people to make decisions, and simply said too many people on the committee are absent or otherwise ready for retirement.
Remember, those who are running against the machine candidates have to be pretty energetic and willing to figth. That's what we need out of committeemen who serve the party's interest and ensure that we get more Democrats elected from the local level through the federal level.
While this is old news, I see that the Post-Star finally has come to their senses and posted the article in it's entirity for all to read. It's important to read and think about this editorial.
When you do a Google search of the phrase, "population of Adirondack Park," the first seven items that come up are, in this order: black bears, deer, bobcats, loons, loons, loons and people.
That ought to give you a clue as to how people rate in the Adirondack Park, and might well serve as a metaphor for the changes needed in the administration of people who live there.
There are no surpises about it—the usual complaints about the APA has become overally bureaucratic and prevents development in the Adirondacks. Some of those complaints are legitimate, though most of those criticisms should not be directed at the Adirondack Park Agency itself, but the unqualified political hacks that staff it.
What we need is quality civil servants who take care of the Adirondacks to protect it and find sensible ways for growth and change. The reason why permits are being slowed up is not burdensome rules, it's understaffing to the point where even the executive board lacks three out of nine members, as our governor doesn't care enough to re-appoint them.
We don't need to tear down the APA. Nobody wants to see the Adirondack Park fully developed. It's not likely to happen as it's pretty rural up there and it's difficult to build on mountains, it's pretty easy to do damage with modern technology. That's why we consitutionally protect this special area of the state, along with having an agency to oversee it.
Simply said the attempts to water down the APA are wrong-headed:
State Sen. Elizabeth Little has proposed legislation recently to speed up the APA approval process by limiting the time the APA takes in deciding whether it has jurisdiction over building permits issued by municipalities. Little also wants to limit the APA's influence over private campgrounds to the limits of existing Health Department regulations. And Little and Assemblywoman Teresa Sayward are both pushing for a moratorium on new unit management plans until the park's state land master plan is updated—which it hasn't been in nearly 20 years.
The APA could respond quicker to villages requests to see if it has authority if it had sufficent staff. Pataki cut funds for the APA repeatly, while creating more public lands for them to oversee in conjuction with Lands and Forests at the DEC.
Likewise, things like a new Master Plan for the Adirondacks and unit plans could be updated if their was sufficent funds. The DEC is not much better off then the APA on this matter, and it's all due to understaffing and underfunding.
Sayward and Little probably have their hearts in the right place in getting the APA to be more responsive and fair, but for the APA to loose jursidiction over matters because they didn't have enough staff only works to undermine the law and consitutional protections surrounding the Adirondacks.
The idea of doing away with regulations relating to campgrounds seems silly. Too many campsites are aggregiously abusing their temporary status and people are building pratically year around houses in trailers far nicer then many less fortunate people have at home.
At any rate, the Adirondack Explorer agrees that the APA can be reformed in large part by ensuring sufficent staff, and having the APA work closer with local governments that largely resent it's influence.
They point out the reality of the APA:
Now, 30 years down the road, we can look back on a number of projects that are much kinder to the Adirondack environment than they would have been because the APA reviewed and modified them before granting a permit. For example, an RV park near Lake Champlain now fits into an apple orchard rather than destroying it, and a subdivision in a scenic vista overlooking Whiteface Mountain has been hidden from the view of passing motorists. There are many other APA-approved buildings that have needlessly diminished the Park, and there are far more projects, including 85% of the nearly 1,000 new houses added to the Adirondacks every year, that do not require any APA review at all. Many of these new structures are crowded along shorelines with septic systems too near the water; many are degrading “rural use” zones that were designated for special protection by the plan. More and more conspicuous houses can be seen sticking out on hillsides and ridges, Colorado style. In short, the Park is being nibbled away.
That's probably closer to how it is or should be. The APA is a bit too bureaucratic, but good people heading the agency can reform it into the right way.
For the governor it seems that if you give the maximum amount through all loopholes, you can give as an individual something like $83k. And from the Brennan Center:
"New York State's laws are among the nation's weakest—on a par with libertarian states that don't pretend to care about the role of money in politics," said Michael Waldman, executive director of the Brennan Center.
No real surpises here, big money dominates New York policy. Yet, it seems that many of those interests balance themselves out fairly well and New York does pretty good despite all the problems.
See the Gromley editorial.
Who makes up the real Vermonter? Is it the progressive free spirit or the mountain boys out there milking their cows? VPR has a fascinating show on who is the real Vermonter.
She's not exactly poor or living the life that many upstaters live, but the same can very much be said about Congressman Sweeney. Think about it for a minute—the job of Congressman pays far better then what your typical job in upstate.
Gillibrand is a lawyer at the Albany office of Boies, Schiller & Flexner and like so many in her district commutes to Albany to make a living. Lawyers are inheritly wealth, just like Congressmen make a lot of money. That doesn't mean she's disconnected from her district.
She probably spends far more time in the 20th district then John Sweeney, whose busy working and smoozing in DC and around the country. Kiristen may get support of many of the same kind of questionable people at Sweeney, but that's politics. You need people with deep pockets to support your ideas.
The vision of Kiristen is vastly superior in representing this area. We need somebody who cares about people, including those who work to make a living. Progressive politics do that, as long as we are always concerned about the new use of government powers.
The reality is Gillibrand has been around in the Albany area far more then Sweeney, and while she might not spend her weekends drinking beer on the tailgate of her pickup truck and sholving horse shit in the stables, neither is John Sweeney.
The Times Union looks at Sweeney's claims and today said rather then calling names, let's focus on the issues.
